In the wake of Italian police shutting down a 900,000 user pirate IPTV service last week, police in Spain have followed up with an operation of their own.

 

Information provided by Policía Nacional and EUROPOL does not include the service’s name but according to the numbers, the operation appears significant. The IPTV service had more than 500,000 subscribers all over Europe, serviced by a network of resellers.

 

Police say they disabled 10 administration panels connected to 32 servers located in France, the Netherlands and Spain. Those locations are reported as playing host to “illegal television content” and related computer equipment.

 

Packages bought by subscribers gave them access to 2,600 live TV channels plus a library of 23,000 movies and TV shows. An interesting factor is the reported age of the service – at least a decade of operations according to Spanish police.

Investigation Launched in 2020

The investigation began in 2020 following a complaint from the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment. Police say that they uncovered a network, operating through various companies, that had been fraudulently commercializing video content since 2012.

 

Websites were used to advertise and sell the illegal subscription packages and like many similar IPTV platforms working at scale, a network of resellers helped to cascade sales from the top-level service into the consumer market below. Police say that than 95 resellers represented the service in Spain, UK, Malta, Portugal, Cyprus, and Greece.

Big Service, Big Money

Numbers provided today by Policía Nacional will almost certainly change, if and when a case goes to trial, but by most standards they remain significant.

 

Annual profit – not revenue – is currently estimated at 3,000,000 million euros. Investigators say the money was laundered in Spain and elsewhere.

 

Through bank accounts held by companies in Spain, the suspects allegedly transferred money to bank accounts held by other companies under their control, located in unnamed paraísos fiscales, aka tax havens. Profits also funded luxury homes in the Malaga region of Spain and the formation of new companies to support criminal activity.

Arrests and Seizures

Police say they seized two high-end vehicles with an estimated value of 180,000 euros along with 2,800 euros in cash, IT-related materials, and other documentation. Eight bank accounts were frozen and four people were placed under arrest.

 

“The operation ended with four detainees in the Málaga municipalities of Benahavís (2), Mijas (one person arrested and another under investigation) and Benalmádena (1),” a police statement reads.

 

Efforts to identify more people involved in the organization continue in other countries.

 

Update:The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment played a key role in this investigation and has just provided new information regarding the IPTV service targeted.

 

The service worked under various brands including TV Choice Spain, Great TV Choice, and Best TV Choice. ACE reports that the services were promoted via real estate agencies, mainly in the coastal areas of Spain, and were actually shut down on October 19, 2022.

 

Authorities raided the main suspects’ residences in Marbella, shut down nine IPTV servers, and froze bank accounts containing 3 million euros.

 

“ACE is proud to support the effective actions taken by the Spanish National Police and Europol against this illegal IPTV piracy ring,” said Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Chief of Global Content Protection for the Motion Picture Association and Head of ACE.

 

“We are honored to continue our work with law enforcement agencies and other partners around the world in our crucial fight to combat large-scale piracy operations and protect the creative marketplace.”

 

There’s no denying the many victories of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) over the past few years.

 

The anti-piracy group, which represents the major Hollywood studios and other prominent rightsholders such as Apple, BBC, Canal+, Sky, and Netflix, systematically hunts down key piracy players.

 

ACE is well-connected with law enforcement agencies worldwide and continues to expand with the addition of new members. Just this week, ACE added Saudi media conglomerate MBC Group to its roster.

ACE Successes

The coalition is also expanding its PR team and regularly reports new anti-piracy successes. These achievements are carefully communicated, which can be frustrating for reporters seeking more context.

 

ACE understandably acts in its own interests so alternative approaches are needed to get a glimpse behind the scenes. For example, ACE frequently obtains DMCA subpoenas at the California federal court to support its enforcement strategy. These court records reveal which sites the group is likely to target in the future.

 

Late last week, the alliance requested a new round of DMCA subpoenas that reference dozens of domain names. Through third-party services including Cloudflare, the TONIC (.To) registry, and hosting provider Zenlayer, ACE hopes to identify the owners of these domains and their underlying services.

Piracy Juggernauts

The legal paperwork mentions 41 domain names related to services of different shapes and sizes. Our focus covers the largest targets but a full list of all domains is available at the bottom of this article.

 

With over 83 million monthly visits, 9anime.gs is the most popular domain on the list. The anime streaming site gets close to a third of its traffic from the United States, followed by the UK and India at a respectable distance.

 

ACE hopes that Cloudflare will provide information on the site’s operators. The same applies to 9anime.vc and 9anime.se, which have 47 and 7 million visits per month respectively.

 

Other popular targets include the pirate streaming sites Soap2day.to, Goojara.to, and Flixtor.to. When combined, these have more than 100 million monthly visits according to SimilarWeb estimates.

 

The remaining domain names include variations of popular pirate brands such as 123movies, Cuevana, and Pelisplus. These are less popular than the aforementioned sites, but most are good for millions of visits nontheless.

Zenlayer

The DMCA subpoena is widely recognized as an ACE anti-piracy tool. Effectiveness depends on the reliability of information held by third parties, Cloudflare and Tonic in this case. In the past, however, we have seen several sites shut down after being targeted in similar subpoenas.

 

The most recent wave also includes a subpoena directed at cloud hosting provider Zenlayer, a service that to our knowledge hasn’t been targeted before. According to ACE, the pirate streaming app MagisTV used Zenlayer to host its infringing service.

 

Other than targeting a new intermediary, the request is the same. Through the MPA, ACE asks Zenlayer to provide all information it holds on the operator of MagisTV and the associated domain name Magisla.com.

 

“As is stated in the attached subpoena, you are required to disclose to the Motion Picture Association, Inc. (on behalf of the ACE Members) information sufficient to identify the infringers.

 

“This would include the individuals’ names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, payment information, account updates and account history,” the request adds.

ACE Piles Up Pirate Domains

ACE legal action mostly plays out behind the scenes and targeted intermediaries commonly comply with requests after the court clerk signs off on them. ACE uses this information to track down site operators so that it can convince them to shut down their sites. When that doesn’t happen, it’s not uncommon to see sites featured in site-blocking injunctions.

 

Thus far, the strategy appears to be paying off, with ACE booking numerous successes over the past year alone. For example, earlier this month ACE announced that it shut down futbollibre.net and dozens of other domains names, which were connected to an Argentinian man.

 

This “major live TV sports piracy ring” was shut down a few months after ACE targeted futbollibre.net and related domains through a DMCA subpoena.

 

Finally, it’s worth noting that not all victories are publicly celebrated by the anti-piracy group. At TorrentFreak we keep a close eye on ‘seized’ domains that receive no official mention. These often end up redirected to the ACE site, presumably as part of a settlement.

 

Over the past month, these include betteranime.app, allpeliculas.org, an1me.su, cinecalidad2.com, yify.tv, aquipelis.me, cuevana.nu, ymovies.to, viperplaytv.com, mywidevine.kaufen, torgersen.co, gnula.li, 6thfloor.life, netfrix.biz, and megadede.org, among dozens of others.

 

With the recent DMCA subpoena wave, we expect that this list will continue to grow. A few of the new candidates are listed below.

 

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A list of all the domains mentioned in the recent DMCA subpoenas (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).

 

 

India began blocking websites in the late 1990s and even today sites are blocked with no explanation. Just this week, VLC’s website was unblocked by ISPs after months in the dark but why it was blocked at all remains a mystery.

 

For at least the last decade, India’s courts have also authorized injunctions that compel local ISPs to block domains linked to alleged copyright infringement. The Pirate Bay was one of the more obvious targets but with blocking requests containing first dozens, then hundreds of domains, an overall picture was hard to determine.

 

Copyright injunctions are more easily tracked today but the pace is relentless. India’s Department of Communications has processed at least 130 court orders since April 2022, including one against Z-Library and another containing more than 13,000 domains. And the orders don’t stop at ISP blocking either.

ISPs Must Block Domains, Registrars Must Disable Them

Star India and Novi Digital Entertainment own broadcasting rights for various sporting events including cricket, football, tennis, hockey and Formula 1. In an effort to reduce piracy of cricket matches broadcast as part of the Asia Cup 2022, they asked the Delhi High Court for a site-blocking order targeting 11 domains.

 

In an order dated August 22, 2022, Justice Prathiba M. Singh was happy to oblige. Agreeing that the plaintiffs had a prima facie case of infringement, she issued an ex-parte interim injunction which required Indian ISPs to block access to the domains.

 

To prevent the sites from regaining an advantage by switching to new domains, the Judge said the order would be ‘dynamic’ and applicable to any new domains.

Domain Registrars Ordered to Take Action

In their application for injunction, Star India and Novi Digital Entertainment linked several domain name registrars to the domains listed above; Sarek Oy (Finland), GoDaddy, NameCheap and Dynadot (United States), Tucows (Canada) and Hostinger (Lithuania).

 

The Judge ordered these foreign companies to immediately block domains under their control and hand over their owners’ names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers and IP addresses, plus records relating to payments and processing.

 

The domain registrars were furthered ordered to identify any other domains owned by the 11 domain owners and hand those details over too. These orders would also apply to any other domains identified by the plaintiffs, the Judge added, further futureproofing the injunction.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

When Star and Novi Digital requested a blocking injunction against the 11 domains, the Asia Cup 2022 cricket tournament hadn’t even started. The applicants’ said that since these domains were linked to earlier infringement, they might infringe their rights in the future. Justice Singh agreed and handed down an injunction dated August 22, 2022.

 

Asia Cup 2022 got underway just four days later and by September 11, 2022, it was all over. A filing at the Delhi High Court dated November 9, 2022, contains many of the Judge’s instructions in bold, underlined italics, suggesting that things hadn’t gone well.

 

Indeed, NameCheap, DynaDot, Tucows, Gransy and Sarek Oy, did not comply with the terms of the injunction, the plaintiffs say. In response to a call for compliance, NameCheap responded as follows:

 

In such situations, it is advised to appeal to a court of competent jurisdiction. In order for us, as a U.S.- based company, to take the actions you are requesting, we require a U.S. state or federal court order or subpoena. If a U.S. court order is received, we will abide by any decision stated therein. If you already have a U.S. court order, please forward it, along with your request and contact information, to our Senior Legal department directly via legal@namecheap.com.

 

After reviewing correspondence with other domain registrars (DNR), Justice Singh notes that the Court “reiterates its prima facie view that all DNRs have to abide by and give effect to orders passed by competent courts, government authorities, etc.”

 

The Judge says that the registrars are bound by the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (pdf), which requires them to appoint ‘Grievance Officers’ to ensure compliance with Indian court orders, orders that they have not complied with.

Domain Registrar Obligations

Justice Singh goes on to cite ICANN agreements governing relationships between registry operators, domain name registrars, and the domain name registry. These agreements “make it abundantly clear that DNRs have to respond adequately to governmental or semigovernmental authorities operating in any country.” In her view, the listed registrars failed to meet this standard.

 

Star India and Novi Digital previously admitted that they have no idea who operates the 11 domains or where those people are located, India included. However, a recent copyright case involving Telegram and handled by the same Judge found that India does have jurisdiction; the plaintiffs reside and do business in India, infringing content circulated in India, and the platform supplying the content was accessible in India.

 

Whether international domain registrars can be reasonably ordered to suspend domains on almost zero notice, based on allegations of copyright infringement violations that haven’t happened, remains to be seen. These things aren’t impossible to navigate but four days maximum doesn’t make the process any easier. Star India won the rights to the Asia Cup in 2018 leaving plenty of time to get a dynamic injunction put in place.

 

Of course, the Asia Cup 2022 itself is now resigned to history but Justice Singh is in no mood to move on without the registrars being held to account.

Judge Orders Action Against Registrars

In orders directed at India’s Department of Communications and Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeiTY), Justice Singh allocates one week for action to be taken against NameCheap, DynaDot, Tucows, Gransy, and Sarek Oy, for non-compliance with the Court’s orders.

 

“The authorities shall also look into the question as to whether these DNRs ought to be permitted to continue to offer their goods and services in India,” the Judge adds, “if they are not giving effect to orders of Indian Courts and not complying with the applicable laws under the Information Technology Act, 2000, and the 2021 Rules.”

 

A further hearing is scheduled for January 11, 2023.

 

The August order, ISP instructions, and order of Nov 9, can be found here (1,2,3,pdf)

 

VPNs are valuable tools for people who want to access the Internet securely and with decent privacy.

 

These services are vital for whistleblowers, activists, and citizens rebelling against Government oppression.

 

The latter has become clear once again in recent months, with Iran pulling out all the stops to block VPN services that dare to offer protesters a window to the rest of the world.

 

In response, some of the more serious VPN providers have taken countermeasures by offering special servers to Iranians to bypass restrictions and using channels such as Telegram to reach out to them. This is having a positive effect but Iran isn’t sitting idle and its blocking efforts are continuous.

 

The situation in Iran demonstrates the crucial role VPNs play in the fight against censorship. However, Iran is not the only country suppressing access to these services; China and Russia are well known for their own restrictive policies.

ACT Against VPN Restrictions

These types of restrictions are problematic according to ‘ACT | The App Association‘, a trade organization that represents thousands of startups and small businesses in the software industry. The organization recently shared its concerns with the U.S. Trade Representative.

 

The U.S. Government completes an annual review of various trade barriers around the globe and ACT believes that overly restrictive policies deserve to be called out. This includes Russia’s VPN law.

 

Russia began cracking down on VPNs in 2017 to help deter copyright infringement. The Government outright banned services that allow users to access blocked pirate sites. Only companies that agree to block content are allowed to continue operating.

 

“This is an obvious trade barrier and real threat to the free market,” ACT writes in its letter to the USTR.

 

“The Russian government cites this regulation as an effort to keep people from accessing dangerous and illegal content. This regulation says that any internet providers that allow these to exist, or function without being blocked, will lose their market access.”

China Too

These types of issues are not limited to Russia. ACT makes no mention of the recent VPN crackdown in Iran but China’s VPN restrictions are called out.

 

Unlike in Russia, China’s anti-VPN stance has little to do with copyright infringement. The country’s policy is mostly in place to ensure citizens are unable to access websites that are banned by the state.

 

ACT believes that the VPN restrictions are a clear trade barrier that affects companies around the globe. It is opposed to China’s widespread blocking of websites, which includes the New York Times, Reddit and Wikipedia.

 

“China regulates and restricts the use of VPNs, leaving consumers in China out of the digital marketplace, while creating massive barriers to entry,” ACT notes. “China’s ‘extensive blocking of legitimate websites’ also threatens to impose significant costs on providers and users of services and products.”

U.S. Response

These concerns are not new. In an earlier trade barrier report, the U.S. Government previously called out China’s restrictive policies. They include a decision to ban VPNs, which also puts the privacy of foreigners at risk.

 

“This [VPN ban] has had a particularly dire effect on foreign businesses, which routinely use VPN services to connect to locations and services outside of China, and which depend on VPN technology to ensure confidentiality of communications,” the USTR wrote.

 

ACT hopes that the USTR will continue to press this issue. Whether that will make China reconsider its policies is an entirely different question. The same is true for Russia, which is unlikely to be receptive to U.S. critique at the moment.

 

What’s clear, however, is that the U.S. Government is already quite aware that VPN services can have considerable value.

 

A few weeks ago, the Department of the Treasury increased its support for internet freedom in Iran. Among other things, it carved out exceptions to the Iran sanctions, allowing U.S. VPN providers to continue operating in the country.

 

“These tools protect the ability of Iranians to engage in free expression and bravely resist regime oppression,” the Treasury wrote.

 

—

 

A copy of ACT’s trade barrier submission for the US Trade Representative’s 2023 NTE report is available here (pdf)

 

As part of a campaign against torrent sites in Denmark, local anti-piracy group Rights Alliance (Rettigheds Alliancen) targeted several members-only torrent trackers.

 

Early November 2021, the Public Prosecutor for Special Economic and International Crime (SØIK) announced that six people had been arrested following criminal referrals by Rights Alliance. All were members and/or operators of ShareUniversity and DanishBytes. One of those arrested was a 33-year-old man from Denmark.

Man Progressed From Site User to Staff Member

Following his arrest one year ago, this week Rights Alliance revealed more information about the now 34-year-old from Aalborg. The anti-piracy group informs TorrentFreak that the man was initially just a regular DanishBytes user but was later promoted to the site’s staff.

 

His position on the DanishBytes team led him to provide IT support to the site’s users. At that time the members-only torrent site offered more than 10,000 copyrighted works to around 5,000 members and, in common with similar sites, not all users understood how everything worked. Rights Alliance says the man did other work too.

Content Acquisition and Hacking

The anti-piracy group says the man was “active in file-sharing” and an uploader on DanishBytes. When users requested specific content to be made available, which included pirated copies of Danish weekly newspapers, the man fulfilled the requests when he could. But there was another side too, one usually hidden from public view.

 

The prosecution’s case included evidence that the man also uploaded video content to DanishBytes. The content was acquired from legal streaming services including Netflix and TV 2 Play, a subscription channel owned by the Danish government. Anyone can legally sign up to these platforms but obtaining content from them carries risks when redistribution is the end goal.

 

The man countered these threats by obtaining streaming service login credentials himself via hacking, and by downloading lists of credentials offered by other hackers. These lists typically contain email addresses and passwords exposed due to a data breach. When users deploy the same username/password combination across sites, all of their accounts face potential exposure.

 

In this case the DanishBytes user avoided paying for Netflix and TV 2 Play while ensuring that any copies he made would be associated with innocent users’ accounts. Rights Alliance couldn’t confirm if any copies were traced using watermarking or similar means. HOwever, it did confirm that the man’s role as a staff member on DanishBytes ended with him being kicked out after two months.

Convicted and Sentenced

Having been convicted for his offenses on DanishBytes and those related to hacking, this week the man appeared for sentencing.

 

“At the court in Aalborg, a 34-year-old man from Aalborg has been sentenced to 3 months’ probation and 80 hours of community service, as well as confiscation of IT equipment, including for having participated in the operation of the illegal file sharing service DanishBytes,” Rights Alliance reports.

Rights Alliance Thanks ‘Danish FBI’

Founded in 2020 with a vision to create a Danish version of the FBI, DSK (National enhed for Særlig Kriminalitet) is a police unit focused on cybercrime, organized crime, and related financial crime. Following this week’s sentencing, Rights Alliance director Maria Fredenslund thanked the ‘Special Crime Unit’ for its work on the DanishBytes case.

 

“NSK, the Section for Legal Protection, has been enormously effective in catching and bringing the masterminds behind DanishBytes and other illegal Danish file-sharing services to court, as well as shutting down the illegal services. In this case, we have seen the hacking of the private data of ordinary Danes with the aim of accessing and retrieving content and then spreading it illegally,” Fredenslund said.

 

“NSK’s efforts have helped to clarify how password hacking is used to give birth to the illegal services with content, and it is gratifying that the masterminds are now being held accountable for their crime, which has consequences for the content industry as well as for the Danes who get their credentials hacked.”

 

The sentence handed down to the DanishBytes user is broadly in line with those handed down recently in similar cases. However, those cases did not feature hacking or stolen credentials so the sentence is likely to be considered lenient.

 

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.

 

These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into the piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

 

This week we have two newcomers on the list. “R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on November 14 are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(…)	R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned	?.? / trailer
2	(7)	Weird: The Al Yankovic Story	7.3 / trailer
3	(…)	Amsterdam	6.1 / trailer
4	(1)	Enola Holmes 2	6.9 / trailer
5	(6)	Top Gun: Maverick	8.6 / trailer
6	(3)	All Quiet on the Western Front	8.0 / trailer
7	(5)	Bullet Train	7.4 / trailer
8	(2)	The Woman King	6.7 / trailer
9	(8)	Black Adam	7.1 / trailer
10	(4)	Smile	6.8 / trailer

 

 

Note: We also publish an updating archive of all the list of weekly most torrented movies lists.

 

Founded more than 16 years ago, Rojadirecta is one of the oldest and most popular linking sites for sports streaming events.

 

Operated by Spanish company Puerto 80 Projects, Rojadirecta has built a loyal user base while simultaneously fighting numerous legal battles.

 

The Spanish streaming site famously challenged a domain seizure by the U.S. Government and eventually came out on top. There have been legal victories on home turf too, but in recent years the tide has turned.

 

Rojadirecta and operator Igor Seoane have suffered a series of setbacks. The site is currently blocked in several countries around the world while Seoane faces a criminal prosecution that could ultimately lead to a prison sentence.

Mediapro vs Rojadirecta

Rightsholders are emboldened by these developments and the numerous victories in hand. In 2016, the Commercial Court of A Coruña ruled that Rojadirecta must stop linking to unauthorized streams of football events. The order followed a complaint by sports rightsholder Grup Mediapro.

 

Faced with the order, Rojadirecta eventually closed its doors to Spanish visitors. The site’s operator appealed the verdict but lost again in 2018. A follow-up petition to the Supreme Court requesting a hearing was also denied.

Mediapro Wants More

Mediapro wasn’t completely happy with the appeal ruling either. The lower court’s judgment held Rojadirecta’s parent company Puerto 80 liable for copyright infringement, but not its operator. Mediapro petitioned the Supreme Court to correct this, which it eventually did.

 

In a recent order, the Supreme Court ruled that Igor Seoane, who is the sole shareholder of Puerto 80, is indeed personally liable for the copyright infringements that were committed through Rojadirecta.

 

“The Supreme Court has rectified this decision and holds Igor Seoane responsible for the illegal activities carried out by the Rojadirecta website,” Mediapro reports, adding that it will seek millions of euros in damages.

 

“At the same time, Mediapro has filed a suit claiming damages against the company Puerto 80 in the amount of €354 million. In light of the Supreme Court sentence, Mediapro will also be claiming damages from Igor Seoane.”

Sole Owner and Operator

Details on the ruling are scarce but according to Spanish news outlet IUSPORT, which has access to the legal paperwork, the Supreme Court concluded that Puerto 80 has no other employees. Seoane is the sole operator.

 

The site reportedly earned between one and two million euros per year in advertising revenue, of which the operator was the main beneficiary. We were not able to verify these conclusions independently but they will likely be repeated in follow-up proceedings, including the criminal trial.

 

TorrentFreak reached out to Seoane for a comment on the Supreme Court ruling but we received no immediate response.

 

Starting in the early part of the last decade, large numbers of technically-minded individuals began selling piracy-configured set-top boxes to the public.

 

Unlike many of their cohorts running torrent and streaming websites, many pirate box sellers conducted business in person and in broad daylight. With few measures in place to reduce the chances of arrest, the most brazen were always likely to be the most vulnerable.

 

So-called ‘fully-loaded’ Android boxes were openly sold on eBay, Amazon, and other online platforms, while local markets, car boot sales, and dedicated retail units offered a same-day service. By mid-2015 it was common knowledge that the UK’s Police Intellectual Property Unit, Trading Standards, and Sky were teaming up to take sellers down yet a surprising number of sellers carried on regardless.

New Marketing Strategy Changed Nothing

AndroidSticks Ltd was incorporated in November 2013, with sole director Halton Powell describing his occupation as ‘Electronic Technician’. Almost immediately Powell was tackling his first intellectual property-related problem and in August 2014, AndroidSticks Ltd was sensibly renamed DroidSticks Ltd instead.

 

The name change meant that Powell’s shop in London needed a new sign but online sales continued to grow, on eBay especially. In the summer of 2015, businesses operating in the same growing niche as DroidSticks were raided by PIPCU and Trading Standards. This prompted a marketing review at DroidSticks.

 

After deciding against closure, DroidSticks sent out a message on Twitter, hoping it would take the heat off the company. Piracy discussion would be banned in future, unless it took place elsewhere else. Xbmckodiaddons.com was specifically mentioned as a completely independent forum when DroidSticks advertised its June 2015 launch on Twitter. It was too little, and already too late.

eBay Reported DroidSticks’ Sales

Concerned by the number of pre-configured pirate boxes being sold on its platform, eBay had already drawn investigators’ attention to a seller account operated by DroidSticks. An investigation was launched in March 2015 and a month later, an undercover Sky investigator purchased a device from a shop owned by Powell in Chingford, Essex.

 

DroidSticks boxes were sold with Kodi software pre-installed, which in itself is entirely legal. However, they also contained the ‘Droidsticks Wizard’, a configuration tool that installed add-ons enabling access to pirated streams of premium TV channels, including those owned by Sky.

 

Meanwhile, BestforKodi.com – a site that DroidSticks promoted but denied any connection to – offered all the best tips and tricks while heavily promoting DroidSticks products.

Powell Was Raided in June 2016

A Crown Prosecution Report published on November 11, 2022, reveals that police searches in June 2016 uncovered 1,300 devices in a lock-up storage unit and 121 devices in Powell’s shop. PIPCI says that when Powell was interviewed, he answered “no comment” to all questions. That can be seen as a strategy to avoid self-incrimination but evidence elsewhere was not in short supply.

 

When police reviewed Powell’s bank account it revealed that sales of 24,515 devices on eBay had generated £2,344,949. When Sky presented its assessment of losses due to Powell’s activities, the broadcaster pointed to potential losses of £13,826,460. When DroidSticks decided not to shut down and switched piracy discussions to the private forum instead, that was seen as a move to continue the fraud against Sky.

Guilty Plea and a 30-Month Prison Sentence

On November 11, 2022, at Southwark Crown Court, Powell (44) pleaded guilty to supplying articles for use in a fraud.

 

According to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), he was sentenced to two years and four-and-a-half months imprisonment. PIPCI says he received a slightly longer sentence of two years and six months but both agree that Powell knew exactly what he was doing.

 

“Powell attempted to hide the illegitimate nature of his business by concealing evidence that he was selling products pre-configured to stream Sky Sports and Sky Cinema. However, PIPCU officers were able to prove he was aware the set-top boxes were being used for this purpose by thousands of customers,” says Detective Sergeant Peter Gartland from PIPCU.

 

CPS Specialist Prosecutor Sarah Place says that Powell was “ruthless in exploiting new emerging technology and software” and that he later helped customers to commit fraud with devices he’d configured for exactly that purpose.

 

“He was devious in his subsequent efforts in providing instructions to customers to show how to set up the boxes and to provide answers to questions about this fraudulent activity,” Place says.

Sky Welcomes Sentence, CPS Goes After The Money

Thanking PIPCU for their work, Matt Hibbert, Sky’s Director of Anti-Piracy, says the length of Powell’s sentence shows that fraud is a significant crime, especially at this scale.

 

“The financial sums involved and the length of the sentence handed down today underline the seriousness of this type of criminality. We’ll continue to work with law enforcement and our industry partners to protect consumers and take action against those organizations intent on stealing our content,” Hibbert says.

 

Whether or not assets relating to Powell’s crimes still exist is unclear but the Crown Prosecution Service says it will commence proceedings for confiscation orders against any available assets.

 

When the United States Trade Representative puts a country on the Watch List, it sends a message that protecting U.S rightsholders should become a priority.

 

Brazil is one of the countries on the list and it’s trying to make amends. A criminal complaint against stream-ripping site Yout, for example, mirrors the RIAA’s legal work against the site’s operator in the U.S. Coincidentally, perhaps, the U.S. government seized a few pirate music domains on Brazil’s behalf not long after.

 

Brazilian authorities have also expended considerable effort tackling pirate IPTV services, web-based streaming platforms, and pirate streaming apps as part of Operation 404. Many arrests have been reported too, not to mention anti-piracy action in the ‘metaverse‘, which may (or may not) yet exist.

Brazil is Far From Done

Under powers inherited from the Ministry of Communications, telecoms regulator Anatel (Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações) together with movie group Ancine (Agência Nacional do Cinema) will also implement an internet blocking system designed to disrupt IPTV pirates’ ability to do business.

 

It could be ready as early as next year, with information suggesting that both agencies prefer an administrative blocking program with no court oversight.

 

In the meantime, efforts to prevent pirate set-top boxes from entering the country continue alongside seizures of devices that managed to make it across the border.

 

A reported 1.5 million devices were seized and destroyed in 2020-2021, although a lucky few were repurposed in schools, hospitals, even police cars. (Most recent actions below)

 

Anatel also provides data that reveals the total number of set-top boxes seized from January 1, 2019.

 

It appears that an 18-month period ending December 31, 2021, returned the best results before seizures completely leveled off in the first half of 2022. From the data, it’s not immediately clear whether restricted set-top box availability or falling detection rates were responsible.

 

For owners of devices set for the market or even sitting at home, Anatel has just issued a reminder that illegal set-top boxes are punishable with a fine.

New Methodology For Calculating Fines

During a board meeting at Anatel on November 3, 2022, a new methodology for calculating fines was announced in relation to the unauthorized use or commercialization of non-approved or non-certified products, which includes set-top boxes.

 

“Irregular TV boxes (not approved) allow access to closed television channels without paying for the service. In addition, irregular devices can pose a risk to children and adolescents, with access to inappropriate content, and also a danger to the privacy of user data,” Anatel reports.

 

“In addition, by carrying out the illicit practice, the offender also commits the crime of violating copyrights against immaterial property and smuggling.”

 

The approved methodology provides for a fine of R$ 110.00 [US$20.00] for Individuals or Individual Microentrepreneurs (MEI) for minor infractions and a fine of up to R$ 30 million [US$5.58m] for Large Companies for serious infractions (1)

 

That leaves the question of what makes a set-top box, an illegal set-top box.

Public Consultation

The proposed criteria are laid out in a public consultation document. It aims to create a specific product classification (“Smart TV Box”) and procedures to ensure that, any device with features aimed at violating copyright law, are denied official certification and access to the market.

 

Among other things, testers must examine devices for any default applications that “indicate possible copyright infringement of audiovisual content” and to establish whether ‘root mode’ has been enabled.

 

Testing laboratories must also list all software or applications installed by default and check them against a “list of irregular equipment or software published or endorsed by Anatel.”

 

If there’s a match here, the device will not be certified and cannot be sold. At the time of writing, we are unable to confirm which software applications appear on Anatel’s blacklist or what type of functionality is considered unacceptable.

 

In any event, the certification scheme effectively means that by default, all set-top boxes will be considered illegal, at least until they are deemed worthy of official certification.

 

The consultation document can be found here

 

The ‘Infringing Website List’ (IWL) is operated by the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) in the UK under the banner ‘Operation Creative’.

 

Launched in 2014, its purpose is to disrupt pirate sites’ ability to make money when takedown notices and other efforts by the “private sector have had limited success.”

 

The IWL is considered a proportionate response to rampant online piracy, and given the nature of most domains currently on the list, it would be foolish to argue otherwise. That said, the IWL is a completely closed system and as such there is close to zero public transparency.

 

Pirate site domains are nominated for inclusion by rightsholder/anti-piracy groups such as the MPA, BPI, IFPI, Publishers Association, and FACT. Once the police have conducted their own investigations, any domain added to the IWL finds itself blacklisted by the advertising industry and then shared as part of the full list with other stakeholders, rightsholders, and anti-piracy groups.

 

As the UK government noted in its 2020-2021 IP Crime Report (pdf), “such sites are accepted for disruption,” meaning that for owners of domains on the list, which is integrated into numerous other databases for automated processing, nothing good lies ahead.

 

The not-for-profit Internet Advertising Bureau, the industry body for digital advertising in the UK, advises its members that the IWL contains confirmed illegal domains. It is the responsibility of IAB UK members to ensure that no one does any business with any domain on the list – or else.

 

“The IWL works as an inappropriate schedule and allows you to exclude known illegal sites from your ad buying, selling or trading,” IAB UK says. Similar advice is provided by the Gambling Commission, the official regulator for most types of gambling activities across Great Britain.

 

“You must ensure that you do not place digital advertisements on websites providing unauthorized access to copyrighted content and must take all reasonable steps to ensure that third parties with whom you contract do similar,” the regulator warns.

 

The suggestion here is that advertising entities not only have to ensure that their own conduct is impeccable but must also shoulder some responsibility for the conduct of others. This chaining of responsibility is not uncommon in business but the climate around the Infringing Website List is more loaded than others.

Linking >>> Linking >>> Linking >>>

The messaging is clear: if a domain appears on the IWL it is confirmed as illegal and most likely engaged in criminality. By extension, the operator of the domain is a suspected criminal. The police make this clear when they write to the owners of listed domains, warning of offenses under the Fraud Act 2006, Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, and even the Serious Crimes Act 2007.

 

At this point we’d like to make it absolutely clear that, as far as we can determine, most of the domains on the list do seem linked to infringing activity. And, in most cases, the listed domains appear to have no real purpose than to infringe copyright. That’s exactly the type of domain the IWL was intended to accomodate.

 

That raises the question of why the Microsoft-owned domain Github.io was added to the Infringing Website List on June 28, 2022, and has remained there ever since. Importantly the culprit is not Microsoft or GitHub, but a user of the latter. It appears the Github user created a repository on Github pages containing information on how to gain access to The Pirate Bay and that was determined to be a crime.

 

The page, published in the usual username.github.io format, doesn’t contain any infringing content and doesn’t link to any infringing content. It does link to other domains that in turn provide proxy access to the front page of The Pirate Bay, but that doesn’t carry links to any infringing content either.

 

Elsewhere on The Pirate Bay, embedded magnet links do link to IP addresses offering infringing content, but users still have to fire up a torrent client to find out.

But the IWL Entry Also Adds a Github.io Subdomain?

The individual who discovered Github.io on the “never do business” list is responsible for implementing the list in their line of work. They think that the IWL is a good idea and had previously blacklisted all main domains plus their extensions and subdomains for the sake of simplicity.

 

That approach was prompted by a) some domains on the list having multiple infringing subdomains and b) sites operating a mobile version on a subdomain but not having their main domain listed on the IWL, despite carrying exactly the same content. Some decisions are easier than others but blacklisting the entire Github.io domain was an entirely different proposal.

Perceived Threats to Business and Livelihoods

The underlying problem is a genuine concern that under-blocking could lead to severe consequences for people in the advertising chain. A report published in 2021 by French anti-piracy agency Hadopi reveals why some in the industry are apprehensive.

 

“A PIPCU contractor (Pathmatics) monitors [sites on the IWL], using dedicated software (AdRoutes) to trace the chain of advertisers that place ads on the site. It informs any non-partner advertisers that they may be regarded as accomplices in the infringement of intellectual property law,” Hadopi’s report reads (pdf).

 

“PIPCU has contacted the authority responsible for issuing gambling and betting licences (the Gambling Commission). The latter has informed licensees that their licence could be revoked if they advertise on illegal websites.”

The IWL is Considered Secret, Police Refuse to Comment

Over the years, reporters and other interested parties have filed Freedom of Information Act requests to learn more about the IWL, but with few results.

 

“All sites on IWL are identified and evidenced as infringing by rights holders and then verified by PIPCU. We are not making the IWL public. The List will be ever changing as new sites appear and older sites comply,” one response reads.

 

Another, which asked PIPCU to supply evidence to back up claims that the IWL is “successful”, received the response: “No information held.”

 

In 2021, however, the College of Policing requested information and received the following in return;

Criteria For Blacklisting Are ‘Confidential’

It would be useful to know what prompted police to add Github.io’s subdomain and domain to the IWL when it’s obvious that less aggressive options exist. We’ll never know because as Hadopi’s report notes, “the criteria used by the police are confidential.”

 

We could speculate that since several domains with ‘proxybay’ in their URLs are already blocked by UK ISPs due to a court order concerning The Pirate Bay, proxybay.github.io may have been considered a legitimate target.

 

Other domains with ‘proxybay’ in their URLs – proxy-bay.dev, proxy-bay.co and proxybay.center – are also listed on the IWL but a) none of them currently link to pirate sites and b) proxybay.github.io is not blocked in the UK.

 

Given that high standards need to be met for a domain to be blocked in the UK, there is zero chance that the High Court would knowingly authorize a GitHub domain to be blocked by ISPs, unless other options had been exhausted first. The IWL blacklist seems more straightforward but according to Hadopi’s report, it shouldn’t be.

 

To be included on the IWL, domains reported by rightsholders must be “massively infringing” to the extent that 50% of their content must be illegal. That doesn’t apply to Github. And here’s more ‘fun’ for the “massively infringing” dev platform:

 

“When a website is added to the list, a letter is also sent to the relevant registrar or to the organization that manages the extension under which the domain name is registered, requesting that the domain name be suspended,” the report notes.

 

Perhaps for obvious legal reasons, that hasn’t happened in GitHub’s case, but voluntary agreements that go beyond normal legal requirements can make things harder to predict.

The Uncertainty of ‘Soft Law’

Other matters involving proxybay.github.io include this Australian court order sent to Google. It does not order Google to do anything, it simply prompts Google to remove GitHub’s subdomain/domain from its search results based on an earlier agreement.

 

In 2019, Google reached a voluntary agreement with local ISPs and rightsholders to deindex domains from google.com.au if they have been blocked under Australian law. Similar voluntary arrangements exist in Europe too. Their existence had to be discovered, they were not publicly announced.

Voluntary Agreements Gain Momentum

In GitHub’s case, the company complies with actual legal requests under U.S. law, in this case the DMCA. As far as we can determine, from the full list of complaints that Github always makes public, the platform was not even sent a basic DMCA notice before a domain it owns was placed on the blacklist.

 

GitHub probably won’t be too alarmed about advertising issues on GitHub.io but being branded potentially criminal, over a page they didn’t create, that links to other sites, which in turn link to another site, which is freely available in the U.S., probably isn’t ideal. Not knowing that your domain is even on the list brings a whole new set of problems.

 

Whether The Pirate Bay or facilitating proxies should actually be available in the U.S. is another matter but, should that ever be contested in court, trust-building transparency will feature in all legal proceedings, meaning that at a bare minimum, people will know where they stand.

 

Infringing Website Lists are gaining momentum all around the world and they are a black hole as far as public information is concerned. Countries including the UK, Italy, Germany, Spain, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Taiwan, either have them already or are currently building them.

 

We’d certainly be interested in hearing more about their operations moving forward because copyright holders view these as the future. They may have good intentions but more often than not, the public simply isn’t allowed in.

 

Additional note:The IWL also includes subdomains/domains of other companies and organizations that are known to respond to straightforward takedown requests, if their users breach copyright law:

 

Sapo.pt: Search engine and portal operated by the University of Aveiro in Portugal
Free.fr: The website of French Internet service provider Free
Blogspot.com: Google blogging platform
Blogspot.pt: As above (Portugal)
Blogspot.it: As above (Italy)

 

Last year, Bungie filed a complaint at a federal court in Seattle, accusing AimJunkies.com of copyright and trademark infringement, among other things.

 

The same accusations were also made against Phoenix Digital Group, the alleged creators of the ‘Destiny 2’ cheating software.

 

AimJunkies denied the claims and argued that cheating isn’t against the law. In addition, it refuted the copyright infringement allegations; these lacked substance because some of the referenced copyrights were registered well after the cheats were first made available, AimJunkies said.

Court Dismissed Bungie’s Copyright Claims

In May, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Zilly largely sided with AimJunkies. The original complaint didn’t provide sufficient evidence for a plausible claim that the ‘Destiny 2 Hacks’ infringed any copyrights, the Judge concluded.

 

This was bad news for Bungie but the court did offer the company an opportunity to file a new complaint to address these shortcomings, which it did soon after.

 

In an amended complaint the game developer added more copyright infringement details and more information on the roles of several key people that are also allegedly involved. That includes James May, who Bungie describes as a third-party cheat developer.

Hacking Counterclaim

AimJunkies responded to the updated complaint and denied that it broke the law. Instead, it turned the table on Bungie, accusing the game developer of hacking when it allegedly accessed May’s computer without permission. In addition, the cheaters argued that Bungie violated the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision.

 

Bungie described these claims as false. There is no evidence that it downloaded anything from May’s computer, the company said. And even if it had accessed his computer without permission, AimJunkies failed to argue that any hacking damage exceeded at least $5,000.

 

Similarly, Bungie also asked the court to dismiss the DMCA circumvention claims as AimJunkies failed to show that the allegedly breached content was copyrighted and that the files were protected by a technological measure.

Claims Dismissed

After weighing the evidence from both sides, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Zilly sides with Bungie, dismissing the counterclaims.

 

AimJunkies failed to successfully plead a hacking case as it didn’t provide evidence for any losses suffered. There’s also no proof that Bungie accessed May’s computer without permission.

 

“May has failed to sufficiently allege that Bungie accessed his personal computer and files without authorization. To support his allegation that Bungie accessed his personal computer, May relies on a document that Bungie purportedly produced during discovery in this matter.”

 

“May, however, does not explain what this document is or how it evidences instances in which Bungie allegedly accessed his computer without authorization and downloaded his personal information,” Judge Zilly adds.

 

The anti-circumvention claims of May and Phoenix both fail as well. AimJunkies didn’t show that the allegedly accessed files were copyrighted or protected by technological measures, as is required.

 

“Importantly, neither May nor Phoenix Digital allege that Bungie accessed any copyrighted work,” Judge Zilly notes. “Further, Phoenix Digital has not pleaded any facts to support that its ‘loader software’ was protected by a technological measure.”

Game Over?

The dismissal is a major setback for AimJunkies but the matter is not completely over just yet. Judge Zilly agrees with Bungie that there is sufficient ground to dismiss the counterclaims with prejudice, meaning that AimJunkies won’t have a chance to repair the shortcomings.

 

The pleading for amended deadlines expires later this month, so AimJunkies has an opportunity to amend its counterclaims and take another shot at Bungie.

 

—

 

A copy of Judge Zilly’s order to dismiss the counterclaims without prejudice is available here (pdf)

 

Over the past several years, Italian internet users have grown increasingly fond of the ‘pezzotto’, aka pirate IPTV boxes.

 

According to recent estimates, 23% of the population – around 11.7 million people – consume live TV illegally. If incoming reports from Italian police live up to the hype, the local piracy market may have just received a considerable blow.

‘Operation Gotha’ Hits IPTV Network with 900,000 Subscribers

Italy’s Polizia di Stato (State Police) says officers are currently engaged in a nationwide operation to take down a huge pirate IPTV network.

 

Police began raiding locations across the country during the early hours of Friday morning with almost two dozen towns and cities named as follows:

 

Ancona, Avellino, Bari, Benevento, Bologna, Brescia, Catania, Cosenza, Fermo, Messina, Napoli, Novara, Palermo, Perugia, Pescara, Reggio Calabria, Roma, Salerno, Siracusa, Trapani, L’Aquila e Taranto

 

Police say the targeted IPTV network is vast, with early reports indicating 900,000 subscribers being serviced nationwide. When combined, police say these customers generated “profits of millions of euros” every month for the network’s operators.

Equipment and Websites Seized

The operation was ordered by the District Prosecutor of Catania and is being executed by the Cyber Security Operations Centers of the Postal Police (Centri Operativi Sicurezza Cibernetica della Polizia Postale).

 

No IPTV services have been specifically named by the Postal Police but these screenshots suggest that some websites may have already been seized.

 

A video released by police appears to confirm that at least one of the targeted locations contained banks of Sky decoders from where broadcasts would’ve been received, captured, and then rebroadcasted to other locations for onward distribution.

 

These images are an important indicator of the nature of Operation Gotha. They confirm that Italian police targeted the exact location of a live broadcast capturing operation. When this type of equipment is seized, every onward server that relies on the content it provides immediately goes dark.

 

Police say that a press conference is scheduled for this morning so if additional information is made available, we’ll update this article accordingly.

 

 

Adult entertainment conglomerate MindGeek owns several of the largest ‘free’ tube sites including Pornhub.

 

In the early days, these sites thrived on pirated content but over time, that changed. Today, MindGeek itself is of the most protective copyright holders in the industry.

 

MindGeek subsidiary MG Premium, for example, has many thousands of works registered at the US Copyright Office. To prevent these videos from being shared online without permission, the company regularly takes legal action.

Daftsex Lawsuit

In a recent case, filed at the federal court in the District of Washington, MindGeek went after Vasily Kharchenko, the alleged operator of Daftsex.com, Artporn.com, Biqle.com and Daxab.com.

 

These sites have been a thorn in MindGeek’s side for years and sending hundreds of thousands of DMCA takedown notices made little difference. So, in 2020, MindGeek obtained a DMCA subpoena against Cloudflare to unmask their operator, which eventually led to Kharchenko.

 

MG Premium accused the operator of mass copyright infringement and argued that he personally uploaded 2,143 of its copyrighted works to the sites. Through the court, the company hoped to stop these infringements and receive compensation for the damages suffered.

Default Judgment

Kharchenko remained silent and didn’t show up in court to defend himself. This left MG Premium with no other option than to request a default judgment seeking millions of dollars in damages and a broad injunction.

 

In the first instance, United States District Judge Benjamin Settle denied the injunction. The massive damages request wasn’t a problem but since third parties such as Cloudflare and FDC Servers were also targeted by the injunction, further evidence was required.

 

To justify such a “sweeping” order, the Judge asked MG Premium to provide more details about the contacts between the defendant and the third-party services.

 

MindGeek responded to this order with an updated request, leaving out most of the third-party services. The only one that remains is Verisign, the registry responsible for .com, .net, .cc, and .tv domain names.

 

Specifically, MindGeek wants Verisign to disable the Daftsex.com, Artsporn.com, Daxab.com, and Biqle.com domains and transfer them to the porn conglomerate.

$32m Damages + Domain Seizures

MindGeek argued before the court that DaftSex alone had 125 million visits in June 2021. If these people all signed up for a Brazzers subscription at $9.99 per month, that would have resulted in over a billion dollars in revenue.

 

The adult entertainment company didn’t ask for a billion dollars in damages though. It requested $15,000 for each of the 2,143 copyright-infringing works that were at stake in the lawsuit. Judge Settle views this as an appropriate amount.

 

“[A]ctual damages could be calculated at over $1,248,750,000, thus statutory damages of $32,145,000 are appropriate for Defendants’ willful infringement. Only a large award will serve to deter these arrogant Defendants from future illegal action,” Judge Settle writes.

 

The Judge also agreed to an injunction that requires Verisign to sign over Daftsex.com, Artsporn.com, Daxab.com, and Biqle.com, to MG Premium’s registrar EuroDNS. This means that MindGeek will effectively seize control of the domains, which have millions of daily visitors.

 

At the time of writing the domains have yet to be signed over. MindGeek expects this to happen fairly soon and is content with the outcome of the case.

 

“We are extremely pleased with the court’s decision, which is crucial to MindGeek’s fight to eliminate piracy of its content. Decisions such as this help contribute to restoring the rights of thousands of content owners who suffer because of illegal pirate sites such as Daftsex,” MindGeek informs TorrentFreak.

 

Jason Tucker of anti-piracy company Battleship Stance, who helps MindGeek to enforce its rights, notes that the domain seizures will be particularly useful to point adult entertainment fans to legitimate sources.

 

“The websites in this case have been causing financial harm to rights holders including MindGeek for a considerable amount of time. Daftsex.com, in particular, has built its own branding and recognition online. The seizure of the domain names in this case will direct consumers back toward legitimate content sources,” Tucker said.

 

—

 

A copy of the default judgment and the permanent injunction, issued by United States District Judge Benjamin Settle, is available here (pdf)

 

In early January 2012, many operators of successful, public file-hosting sites were looking forward to another productive year. Over the space of just a few days, everything changed.

 

The destruction of Megaupload by the US government had serious implications for sites with a similar business model. Sites that paid cash to uploaders based on file popularity seemed particularly vulnerable, so it was not unexpected when some threw in the towel. For the brave and the bold, another throw of the dice was in order.

RIAA Reports Hellshare and Hellspy

Later in 2012, the RIAA submitted its regular report to the United States Trade Representative, requesting various sites to be branded notorious pirate markets. KickassTorrents, Torrentz and ExtraTorrent were among those nominated but while none of those sites are alive today, two lesser-known sites bucked the trend.

 

Launched around 2009, Hellspy and Hellshare had successfully weathered the Megaupload storm. Servicing the local market in the Czech Republic, the platforms also rewarded uploaders based on the popularity of their files.

 

Whether that was a calculated risk or a reckless gamble is up for debate, but eight years later they are still doing their thing across three domains – Hellshare.cz, Hellspy.cz and Hellspy.sk.

No Shortage of Copyright Complaints

According to Google’s Transparency Report, all three domains are regularly reported for carrying infringing content. Companies including StudioCanal, MGM, Columbia Pictures and Sky Italia are regular complainaints, even though an overwhelming number of recent notices sent to Google are not in the search engine’s indexes.

 

According to messages on Hellshare and Hellspy today, 100 downloads of a 1000MB file earn uploaders 5000 ‘credits’. This on-site digital currency can be spent to enable faster downloads and other features but whether that’s actually the case right now isn’t clear. In 2018, the Municipal Court in Prague informed server operators I&Q Group and Hellspy SE that rewards must not be paid to uploaders.

 

Nevertheless, traffic appears to be good. SimilarWeb reports an upturn in visitors over the past few months pushing hellspy.cz towards the top 600 most-visited sites in the Czech Republic. Whether that will continue following an announcement yesterday remains to be seen.

Time to Start Filtering Uploads

The Association of Commercial Television (AKTV) represents the rights of broadcasters in the Czech Republic. Founded in 2017 by the Nova, Prima and Óčko television networks, AKTV’s responsibilities include defending the rights of its members and ensuring that everyone respects copyrights.

 

As reported by the RIAA all those years ago, Hellshare and Hellspy are operated by I&Q Group and Hellspy SE. In an announcement Wednesday, Nova, Prima and Óčko revealed a groundbreaking agreement with Hellshare.cz , Hellspy.cz and Hellspy.sk.

 

According to the TV companies, the platforms have agreed to implement filtering to prevent TV shows being uploaded, and/or appearing in search results.

 

Negotiations reportedly took place over several months but the filtering system itself doesn’t sound particularly advanced, at least not when compared to advanced fingerprinting tools like YouTube’s Content ID. Reports suggest that it targets filenames, duration and types of files, whenever they are uploaded or searched for by users.

 

There is an agreement in place for the system to be tweaked over time in response to user behavior, but that can be unpredictable – sometimes deliberately.

Several Weeks of Testing and Everyone Appears Happy

Jan Vlček, president of AKTV and CEO of TV Nova, says the parties needed to reach an understanding for the good of the TV industry, and to send a message to the sites’ pirate users.

 

“Our primary goal is to minimize the amount of our content illegally shared online. We invest large sums in the order of hundreds of millions a year in production, and such a massive violation of copyrights, as we are witnessing in the Czech Republic, significantly reduces the return on our investments,” Vlček says.

 

“The agreement with I&Q GROUP is a good signal for us that a common language can be found that will help prevent massive depreciation of our investments, and that it is not unreasonably time consuming or financially demanding for storage operators. A signal should also be sent to uploaders that sharing protected content is not legal.”

 

I&Q Group and AKTV cooperated on the filtering system and according to I&Q, everything works as planned – a bonus considering the requirements of the EU’s updated Copyright Directive.

 

“We developed and deployed the filters prepared in cooperation with AKTV at the beginning of the autumn television season, and we have already spent several weeks testing them in practice,” says I&Q Group CEO, Jan Hřebabecký.

 

“We can therefore state that they provide relatively easy and effective filtering of copyrighted content, which is especially important for services of our type in light of the upcoming amendment to the copyright law, which imposes new obligations on us in this area.”

Crack Open The Champagne? Not Yet…

According to an entry dated October 31, 2022, on the Official Journal of the European Union, the Supreme Court in Prague is currently seeking advice from the EU Court to help determine the outcome of an important copyright case.

 

In that matter, the defendants are I&Q Group and Hellspy SE. They’re up against the Czech arm of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. IFPI is the RIAA’s big brother. Both are known for their persistence – not to mention long memories.

 

The Supreme Court seeks answers to these questions:

 

1. Does the spirit and purpose of Directive 2000/31/EC (1) preclude Article 14(1) thereof from being interpreted as meaning that the liability of a provider of an information gathering (hosting) service for the contents of such service includes liability for the manner in which such service is provided?

 

2. Does the spirit and purpose of Directive 2000/31/EC allow for Article 14(1) thereof to be interpreted as meaning that the rules for limiting the liability of a provider of an information gathering (hosting) service set out therein cannot exclude the private-law liability of such a provider for the choice of a particular business model for the provision of the service, even if that model has the potential to benefit from copyright infringement?

 

3. Does the liability waiver set out in Article 14(1) of Directive 2000/31/EC apply to the provider of an information gathering service, and selection from it by means of a search engine, in terms of liability for the manner of its provision, if that manner encourages the service recipient to store the information on it without the consent of the copyright holders, but without the active participation of the service provider in the copyright infringement?

 

Website blocking has become an increasingly common anti-piracy tool around the globe.

 

In dozens of countries, ISPs have been ordered by courts to block pirate sites, usually on copyright grounds. More recently, neutral DNS providers have been targeted as well.

 

Earlier this year, an Italian court ordered Cloudflare to block three torrent sites on its public 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver. The order applies to kickasstorrents.to, limetorrents.pro, and ilcorsaronero.pro, three domains that are already blocked by ISPs in Italy following an order from local regulator AGCOM.

Cloudflare Appeals DNS Blocking Order

Disappointed by the ruling, Cloudflare filed an appeal at the Court of Milan. The internet infrastructure company doesn’t object to blocking requests that target its customers’ websites but believes that interfering with its DNS resolver is problematic, as those measures are not easy to restrict geographically.

 

“Because such a block would apply globally to all users of the resolver, regardless of where they are located, it would affect end users outside of the blocking government’s jurisdiction,” Cloudflare recently said.

 

“We therefore evaluate any government requests or court orders to block content through a globally available public recursive resolver as requests or orders to block content globally.”

 

At the court of appeal, Cloudflare argued that DNS blocking is an ineffective measure that can be easily bypassed, with a VPN for example. In addition, it contested that it is subject to the jurisdiction of an Italian court.

Court Dismisses Appeal

Cloudflare’s defenses failed to gain traction in court and its appeal was dismissed. DNS blocking may not be a perfect solution, but that doesn’t mean that Cloudflare can’t be compelled to intervene.

 

The dismissal is a win for Sony Music, Warner Music, and Universal, the companies behind the complaint. It’s also seen as a clear victory by Enzo Mazza, CEO of the Italian music industry group FIMI.

 

“This is an important decision for Italy and beyond. Cloudflare, as well as other intermediaries providing similar services, should step up their efforts in preventing users access to illegal websites which were ordered to be blocked,” Mazza says.

 

Global music industry group IFPI agrees. According to Chief Executive Frances Moore, the order sets an important precedent.

 

“By upholding the original order against CloudFlare, the Court of Milan has set an important precedent that online intermediaries can be required to take effective action if their services are used for music piracy,” Moore notes.

A Precedent

This is the first time that Cloudflare has been ordered to make pirate sites unavailable through its public DNS resolver 1.1.1.1. This is an important expansion since many Italians switched to public DNS resolvers to bypass ISP blocking measures. With the court order, rightsholders can remove this shortcut.

 

While this type of order is new in Italy, a similar blocking injunction was requested in Germany last year. A local court ordered DNS provider Quad9 to block a pirate site but the decision is still under appeal.

 

Cloudflare believes that these types of orders set a dangerous precedent. The company previously said that it hadn’t actually blocked content through the 1.1.1.1 Public DNS Resolver. Instead, it implemented an “alternative remedy” to comply with the Italian court order.

 

TorrentFreak reached out to Cloudflare for a comment on the dismissal but we received no immediate response.

 

—

 

A copy of the court of appeal’s decision is available here

 

Last year, YouTube released its first-ever copyright transparency report.

 

The streaming platform revealed that the vast majority of all claimed infringements were reported through the Content ID system. This pattern remained intact in the first half of 2022.

 

YouTube’s latest transparency report reveals that 99 percent of all unique claims were made through the automated system, despite the fact that only a tiny fraction of the rightsholders have access to it.

757 Million Claims

Hundreds of thousands of entities sent copyright claims to YouTube over the reporting period. Of these, just 4,773 actively used the Content ID system. This is a small decline compared to last year when 4,893 rightsholders used the automated anti-piracy system. The decline occurred despite more entities having access to the system today.

 

Interestingly, the decline doesn’t result in fewer copyright claims; the number of reported Content ID copyright actions increased to nearly 757 million, a five percent bump compared to last year.

 

YouTube’s Content ID system is mostly automated. More than 99 percent of all claims don’t involve any human intervention but the system does allow rightsholders to submit manual claims if the fingerprint filter fails to pick something up.

 

“For videos missed by automated identification, many Content ID partners have the ability to issue claims manually. While this tool covers an important gap, it accounted for fewer than 0.5% of Content ID claims made in the first half of 2022,” YouTube explains.

Manual Claims are Contested More

Interestingly, these manual claims are twice as likely to be disputed by YouTubers. This suggests that ‘human’ claims are more controversial than those identified by automated filters.

 

The Content ID system isn’t without controversy of course. YouTubers regularly complain about content being flagged in error. At the same time, many rightsholders are unhappy because they are not allowed to use the cutting edge tool.

 

YouTube says that it intentionally restricts access to the tool to the top echelon of verified rightsholders. This is partly done to limit abuse, as Content ID can wreak havoc when it ends up in the wrong hands.

 

“This is especially important because claiming can happen automatically, and while one copyright request removal made from the webform impacts only one (or a handful) of videos, just one invalid reference file in Content ID can impact thousands of videos and users, stripping them of monetization or blocking them altogether,” YouTube notes.

More DMCA Webform Takedowns

Aside from Content ID claims, ‘normal’ rightsholders can use the standard DMCA webforms or the copyright match tool to flag content. This represents only one percent of all flagged content on YouTube. That said, webform usage increased by more than 30 percent year-over-year.

 

Finally, it’s worth noting that YouTubers always have the option to contest copyright claims. During the first half of the year, 3,690,786 disputes were filed, which is on par with a year earlier. These disputes can pay off as more than half were resolved in favor of the uploader.

 

The three transparency reports YouTube has released thus far show the massive scope of the Content ID system, which processed more than two billion claims in 18 months. Going forward, it will be interesting to see how the various trends develop.

 

Copyright holders have tried a wide variety of options to tackle online piracy over the years, including through direct legal action

 

More recently we have seen lawsuits against people who allegedly downloaded and shared pirated content, but operators and developers of pirate services have also been sued.

 

A group of US-based independent movie companies has expanded its legal reach by going after third-party intermediaries. The makers of movies such as “Hellboy,” “Hunter Killer,” “Rambo V: Last Blood,” and “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” have taken aim at VPN services and their hosting companies.

 

This legal campaign has already returned several successes. Earlier this year, the filmmakers won $14 million in damages in their case against VPN provider LiquidVPN. Other companies including Torguard, VPN Unlimited and VPN.ht settled their disputes and agreed to block torrent traffic on U.S. servers.

 

Hosting companies haven’t been spared either. Sharktech, for example, initially fought back but later agreed to settle and block prominent pirate sites including ‘Pirate Bay,’ ‘YTS’, and ‘RARBG’.

$4.2 Million in Damages

Last week, another victory was added to the list. At a federal court in Colorado, United States District Judge R. Brooke Jackson issued a judgment against the defunct hosting company MICFO, awarding $4,200,000 in statutory damages for contributory copyright infringement.

 

The judgment is a clear win for movie company Millennium and its affiliates. For MICFO, which is no longer operational, it only adds to its troubles.

 

In addition to this civil lawsuit, MICFO finds itself at the center of a criminal case. The hosting company and its owner were indicted by a grand jury in Charleston, South Carolina in 2019, and stand accused of a scheme to fraudulently obtain IP addresses from ARIN.

 

These IP-addresses were sold to major companies such as Amazon and Saudi Telecom for millions of dollars. MICFO also used the IP-addresses to serve its own clients, which included VPN companies Hide My Ass, NordVPN and Proton.

Ignored Piracy Notices

The filmmakers accused the hosting company of turning a blind eye to piracy activities allegedly committed by the subscribers of its VPN clients. In practice, this meant that it didn’t forward any of the piracy notifications that were sent.

 

“Defendant failed to take any action against these customers in response to the Notices because it was motivated to receive subscription funds from the customers rather than terminate service,” Judge Jackson writes in his order.

 

MICFO was held liable for copyright infringement through a default judgment and after an evidentiary hearing, the court ruled that maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per work is appropriate here. With 28 movies at play, this brings the total to $4,200,000.

 

This damages award is “more than reasonable,” Judge Jackson argues, as the movie companies calculated that the actual damage they suffered is much higher.

 

“The Court finds Plaintiffs’ request for maximum statutory damages of $4,200,000 more than reasonable in view of Plaintiffs’ lost revenue of nearly $7,000,000..,” the order reads.

Open Ends

MICFO is no longer operational. The company and its CEO pleaded guilty in the criminal wire fraud case and will be sentenced soon. Interestingly, that appears to be good news for the filmmakers, as the US Government seized close to $17 million in funds and assets in that case.

 

Part of the seized assets could be used to pay the damages award. And indeed, Judge Jackson’s order clarifies that the Plaintiffs may execute judgment immediately to claim restitution from the District Court in South Carolina.

 

The filmmakers are also assigned any third-party contract breach claims the hosting company has against its clients. This includes any claims against the VPN companies it served.

 

MICFO’s terms of service required its customers to indemnify the hosting provider in the event of liability claims. This means that the filmmakers can use this as a stick to go after the hosting company’s VPN clients.

More Legal Action

Over the past several years, Millennium Funding and affiliated film companies have established a record of obtaining leverage in court, which can then be used for related matters, both in and outside of court. It wouldn’t be a major surprise to see this pattern repeat.

 

The only active VPN case that we’re aware of is against VPN provider PIA, which recently defeated the direct infringement claims through a motion to dismiss. The contributory and vicarious copyright infringement claims remain, however.

 

Following the partial dismissal, the filmmakers filed an amended complaint against PIA and the case is still ongoing.

 

—

 

A copy of the money judgment against MICFO, issued by United States District Judge R. Brooke Jackson, is available here (pdf). The associated findings and conclusions can be found here (pdf)

 

In September 2021, U.S. broadcaster DISH Network filed a copyright infringement complaint in a Michigan court targeting two sets of defendants.

 

Atlas Electronics, a Michigan-based retailer of unauthorized IPTV services, and company owner Alaa Al-Emara made up the first set. The second comprised iStar Company and owner Ahmed Karim, the suppliers of iStar set-top boxes and operators of ‘Online TV’, the iStar IPTV service resold by Atlas.

 

The Atlas defendants were accused of indirect copyright for their part in facilitating access to iStar streams. The iStar defendants were accused of both direct and indirect copyright infringement. All told, the Atlas and iStar defendants faced a $24 million copyright infringement damages claim.

 

In January 2022 and after none of the defendants mounted a defense, DISH requested a default judgment. It appeared that DISH might settle with the Atlas defendants but this July, the broadcaster walked away with a $5.7m judgment – $35,000 for each of the 164 copyrighted works infringed.

 

On top, DISH won a restrictive permanent injunction but taking down iStar would be less straightforward.

“Little Hope” of Stopping iStar IPTV But DISH Presses On

Since its launch in 2006, Iraq-based iStar and its ‘Online TV’ IPTV platform have become huge problems for legitimate broadcasters. Earlier this year, broadcaster beIN told the USTR that iStar’s links with Iraqi government officials made it almost untouchable, leaving “little hope” of tackling the service in civil or criminal procedures locally.

 

Of course, beIN has seen it all before. Notorious piracy giant beoutQ also seemed unstoppable before disappearing in 2019. beIN and DISH are members of the International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy so given that group’s reputation for escalating action across multiple investigations, nothing should be ruled out here either.

iStar and Karim: Direct Copyright Infringers

With the win against Atlas in hand and iStar failing to appear, DISH asked a Michigan district court to enter a default judgment against iStar and owner Ahmed Karim.

 

In a judgment handed down this week, Judge Laurie J. Michelson says that Michigan long-arm statute authorizes jurisdiction over the defendants, not least since they transmitted copyright content and supplied piracy-configured set-top boxes to Michigan customers. DISH properly served the defendants under Iraqi law, the Judge adds.

 

Noting that DISH had established liability via its well-pled factual allegations, Judge Michelson found that the iStar defendants directly infringed DISH copyrights in 157 works, all registered in the United States.

 

DISH requested maximum statutory damages of $150,000 each of those works based on the defendants’ willful infringement. During 46 months of iStar activity, DISH said it had lost thousands of subscribers but the Judge notes that there is no way of knowing how many of those subscribers would have subscribed to DISH if iStar wasn’t available.

 

“[M]any factors apart from cheaper alternatives lead consumers to stop subscribing to television programming, such as market downturn,” Judge Michelson writes. “So the Court will not award DISH the statutory maximum of $150,000 per infringed work.”

DISH Wins $15.7m in Copyright Infringement Damages

After ruling out a maximum damages award for willful infringement, the Judge notes that statutory damages are not just about compensating rightsholders. By awarding $100,000 for each of the 157 works – a total of $15.7 million – a clear deterrent message will be sent to the infringers.

 

The question of how iStar will be prevented from simply carrying on its business regardless was addressed in a proposed permanent injunction filed by DISH. Given the likelihood that iStar will demonstrate non-compliance and DISH will be required to put in more work as a result, the company aimed high. As a result, DISH didn’t get everything it asked for.

Permanent Injunction Justified

In justifying its request to the Court, DISH spoke of the damage caused by iStar’s infringing activity. Claims of reduced demand for subscriptions, reputational damage, and erosion of goodwill due to content appearing on a sub-standard service, all helped to convince the Court that DISH suffered irreparable harm due to iStar’s infringement.

 

Agreeing that a permanent injunction is appropriate to protect DISH, Judge Michelson sees no downsides to an order restraining iStar’s business. The public has “no legitimate interest” in the continued operation of the iStar service and the public interest is best served when the creation of copyrightable works is encouraged.

 

Ensuring that injunctions have sensible limits is also part of that formula, however.

Judge Declines to Restrain Unknown Third Parties

To disrupt iStar’s operations, DISH asked the Court to authorize Verisign and Registry Services to disable and then transfer several domains – istar-hd.com, istar-3d.com, stbhostupdate.biz, and online-validate-api.com – over to DISH.

 

Since the domain companies are “in active concert or participation” with iStar’s infringing activities, the request was granted, along with a similar request for Servers Services Ltd, Worldstream B.V., and Incapsula Inc. to disable iStar servers on various IP addresses, and terminate all business activity with iStar.

 

An additional request, allowing for unknown third parties to be automatically restrained by the injunction, was rejected outright.

 

“[T]o the extent DISH asks the Court to permanently enjoin unidentified third parties, the Court declines to do so at this time as such an injunction would be overly broad,” the judgment reads.

 

“DISH has not shown that any of these nonidentified third parties have affirmatively acted to ‘aid and abet’ [Karim and Istar] in evading a prior order or in committing the alleged underlying unlawful conduct. And none of these parties have received notice.

 

“As such, the request is premature and without any evidentiary basis, so the Court declines to issue the requested relief at this time.”

 

Warning all parties that violations of his order will lead to penalties, including but not limited to contempt of court proceedings, Judge Michelson retained jurisdiction over the action for the purpose of enforcing the judgment and permanent injunction. Given iStar’s past conduct, further intervention seems almost inevitable.

 

The order for default judgment and permanent injunction is available here (pdf)

 

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.

 

These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into the piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

 

This week we have four newcomers on the list. “Enola Holmes 2” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on November 7 are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(…)	Enola Holmes 2	6.9 / trailer
2	(…)	The Woman King	6.7 / trailer
3	(1)	All Quiet on the Western Front	8.0 / trailer
4	(…)	Smile	6.8 / trailer
5	(3)	Bullet Train	7.4 / trailer
6	(4)	Top Gun: Maverick	8.6 / trailer
7	(…)	Weird: The Al Yankovic Story	7.3 / trailer
8	(5)	Black Adam	7.1 / trailer
9	(2)	Barbarian	7.2 / trailer
10	(7)	Thor: Love and Thunder	6.5 / trailer

 

 

Note: We also publish an updating archive of all the list of weekly most torrented movies lists.

 

With millions of regular visitors, Z-Library is one of the largest repositories of pirated books on the Internet.

 

The site has nearly 12 million copies of books in its digital archive, which is shared with the world for free.

 

While many people appreciate the service, authors and publishers are not happy. The Authors Guild described the Z-Library as a “trade barrier” recently, while the Association of American Publishers branded the shadow library a “notorious” pirate site.

 

Complaints also reached the highest echelons of U.S. law enforcement, resulting in a wave of seizures last Friday, which took the main Z-Library domain names offline.

New Seizure Banner

Some domains initially redirected to a seizure banner referencing the Department of Justice . The involvement of the latter seemed out of place but over the weekend a new banner appeared, replacing the postal service graphic with another from the FBI.

 

“This domain has been seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in accordance with a warrant issued pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 981(b) and 21 U.S.C. § 853(f) by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York,” the replacement reads.

 

The Department of Justice refused to comment on the matter when we reached out, but the banner suggests that Z-Library is part of a criminal investigation. The warrant referenced by the authorities most likely compels domain registrars and registries to update domain records so that they point to a server controlled by law enforcement.

Dozens of Domain Names

Z-Library used a wide variety of registrar services, including those offered by American companies Tucows and GoDaddy. Most of these domains point to seizure banners now.

 

Our research revealed that more than 140 associated domain names (see below) were caught up in this enforcement action, including z-lib.org, book4you.org, u1lib.org, bookmail.org, b-ok.org, b-ok.cc, booksc.xyz, bookos-z1.org, vn1lib.club, zlibcdn.com, and usa1lib.org.

 

Many of these domain names are backups or mirrors of Z-Library services. However, there are also less usual targets such as the ‘GLOBAL Electronic library,’ hosted at Gloe.org (archived). This was a service that libraries and bookstores could use to digitize their books. Apparently, this was connected to Z-Library as well.

Registrars and Registries

Not all known Z-Library domains are currently offline. The login portal ‘singlelogin.me’ and booksc.me, for example, remain online. These domains are registered through the Finnish company Sarek Oy, which is affiliated with Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde.

 

B-ok.cc, which is also registered through Sarek, has been seized, however. This suggests that the .CC domain registry stepped in here.

 

From what we gather, the authorities approached both registrars and registries with the warrant. It is possible that some companies have yet to take action, which could explain why the Department of Justice is yet to offer an official statement.

The Book’s Not Closed Yet

The seizures are a major blow to the Z-Library operation but the service hasn’t been completely wiped out. The service’s .onion domain remains operational and accessible through the Tor network at the time of writing.

 

Interestingly, Z-Library hasn’t confirmed the seizures either. The Tor site has a notice referring to ‘problems with the servers’ but that seems to be an understatement.

 

The shadow library sent us the same explanation last Friday. In a follow-up this weekend, it did mention domain issues, while avoiding the seizure topic.

 

“The z-library general domains are currently unavailable due to a server block by one of our hosting providers. We are doing our best to get back to work as soon as possible,” Z-Library reported.

 

—

 

A list of all the seized domain names we were able to track down is available below. Most point to a seizure banner. This list isn’t officially verified nor is it exhaustive.

 

 

Large public torrent sites, such as The Pirate Bay, RARBG and YTS, attract massive international audiences. By dedicating themselves to a specific niche, smaller torrent sites can also generate significant traction.

 

Some sites focus on a particular type of music, for example, while others may concentrate on movie genres including horror or anime. Since most torrent sites typically carry content in English, private torrent sites catering to speakers of a particular language can become hugely successful, something especially true for those attracting Scandinavian users.

 

Copyright holders operating in Denmark, where just six million people speak Danish, view private torrent sites as unfair competition in what is already a relatively small market. So, in partnership with their colleagues at Danish anti-piracy group Rights Alliance, a decision was made to shut down all local torrent sites – for good.

Pulling Sites Up At The Roots

With backing from the Danish government’s SØIK’s IP-Task Force, Rights Alliance took down DanishBits and NordicBits, two sites with big reputations that stretched far beyond Scandinavia.

 

Taking these sites down sent a clear deterrent message but instead of shutting down, private tracker Asgaard took in new members, many from the shuttered sites. A few weeks later the previously emboldened Asgaard announced it too would close, mostly to avoid staff being arrested.

 

Danish police didn’t get the memo and over the next several months, seven people were arrested. By March 2022, four prosecutions had led to criminal convictions.

 

– Man, 50: 4 months in prison, 3 conditional (June 2021)
– Man, 43: 3 months in prison (conditional) plus community service (February 2022)
– Man, 54: 3 months in prison (conditional) plus community service (March 2022)
– Man, 35: 3 months in prison (conditional) plus community service (March 2022)

 

As the image above shows, earlier this year three of the seven were yet to face the courts. Following a process last week, just two remain.

Fifth Criminal Conviction

On November 3, 2022, at the Aarhus Courthouse in Denmark, a 47-year-old man became the fifth member of Asgaard to be convicted since is closure in late 2020. He allegedly co-founded Asgaard in May 2019, with Rights Alliance describing him as one of the site’s masterminds.

 

In addition to buying Asgaard’s domain name, asgrd.org, he helped cover the costs, make decisions related to its operations, and also acted as its ‘press officer’. Rights Alliance reports that between 2015 to 2020, he was also associated with DanishBits and ShareUniversity.

 

“The sentence is 3 months’ probation and 80 hours of community service, confiscation of DKK 2,282 [US$305.00), a desktop PC and two external hard drives, and compensation to the Rights Alliance of DKK 35,000 [US$4,670],” Rights Alliance says.

 

“During the period of the crime, Asgaard had 23,000 users, and gave access to at least 15,000 files with copyright-protected works, several of which were shared before their digital premiere.”

And Then There Were Two

Following the conviction last week, just two of the initial seven suspects are yet to face the courts. An updated graphic from Rights Alliance indicates that an Asgaard moderator and one other person are yet to have their cases concluded.

 

Rights Alliance Director Maria Fredenslund says that the convictions are the product of hard work designed to wipe out all Denmark-based file-sharing sites.

 

“It is immensely satisfying to note that the masterminds are now – one by one – being convicted of their criminal enterprise. We are dealing with a number of backers who were not only systematic in their violations of the rights of the members of the Rights Alliance, but also well organized,” Fredenslund says.

 

“They were dynamic, in the sense that if one service was shut down, they continued their illegal activities on another. Each sentence in this extensive case is an underlining that despite the organization and dynamic methods of the masterminds, they will be caught and held accountable for their violation.”

 

According to Jan Østergaard, Special prosecutor at the National Unit for Special Crime (NSK), the conviction sends a message to site operators and site users alike.

 

“It is very satisfying that, on the basis of a strong and focused effort, NSK has brought another mastermind to account,” Østergaard says.

 

“It sends a clear signal to both the masterminds and to the Danish pirate users that there is a great focus on this type of crime.”

 

NSK was established on 1 January 2022. Among other things, NSK aims to combat complex organized crime and financial crime.

 

Whenever it’s mentioned and no matter where in the world, the word Hollywood conjures up images of glamor, untold riches, and the extraordinary power of the movie industry.

 

Widely considered the show business capital of the world, Hollywood’s ability to maintain and build upon its carefully cultivated image is the product of more than a hundred years of filmmaking. For the last century exactly, the Motion Picture Association has ensured that less glamorous matters, such as legislation and taxation, have always trended in Hollywood’s favor.

 

Representing the interests of just six members – Disney, Netflix, Paramount, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros. – today’s MPA is the most powerful organization of its type anywhere in the world. In no small part it helps to maintain Hollywood’s sparkling, enduring, yet somehow untouchable public image, in and beyond the corridors of power.

 

Founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), an early goal was to prevent government interference in filmmaking. One hundred years later, the MPA regularly calls on the government to interfere, not in the filmmaking process, but in any way it can – in any country – to ensure that Hollywood’s interests are never overlooked.

MPA and ACE – Partners in the Fight Against Piracy

One of the most visible aspects of MPA advocacy relates to its anti-piracy work, much of it now handled by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE). The MPA provides ACE with the resources it needs to tackle piracy on behalf of its founding members, while dozens of rightsholders in the wider movie and TV sector are also required to support ACE financially.

 

In broad terms, ACE is effectively a department of the MPA with a remit to protect non-MPA member content, as long as the owners are paid-up members of the coalition. MPA members contribute more in financial terms but when a site is taken down to protect Hollywood, content produced by other ACE members goes down with it.

 

ACE has shown an impressive ability to get the job done since its launch in 2017 and its activities are regularly reported here on TorrentFreak. We do seek comment from ACE at appropriate times but the nature of the anti-piracy group’s work means that feedback is limited, leading to our own research and investigations taking precedence.

 

ACE does make its own announcements but only when it feels the time is just right, which rarely coincides with our intention to break potentially sensitive stories right now. More recently, however, ACE has been noticeably more active on the media front with more regular reporting of some (but not all) of its recent achievements.

 

At first, this didn’t seem especially unusual but then we learned that the MPA is working on something new that to our knowledge hasn’t happened before. In what could be a move to make best use of the financial costs associated with the ACE anti-piracy mission, the MPA intends to take the negatives of piracy, highlight them through the prism of ACE’s anti-piracy work, and combine both to create new opportunities.

 

In more brutal terms, piracy is a turd that not even the MPA can polish, but with some Hollywood charm and considerable help from the media, ACE’s anti-piracy achievements can be rolled in even more glitter, sprinkled with silver screen magic, then used as a Hollywood promotional tool. The only surprise is that the great minds of Tinseltown didn’t think of it sooner.

What Every Stealth Investigator Needs: A PR Department

Confirmation that the MPA is about to hit the anti-piracy mass-publicity button can be found in a job listing seeking a candidate for the position of Vice President of Global Communications, with responsibility for ACE, the MPA’s worldwide Content Protection Enforcement team, and the MPA-owned Trusted Partner Network (TPN).

 

“The VP will execute globally on communications strategy and tasks with the content protection teams in the U.S. and abroad, with a focus on media relations, press release writing, and digital media strategy. This position is salaried, exempt and reports to the Senior Vice President, Global Corporate Communications and the Executive Vice President, Chief Global Content Protection,” the listing reads.

For Hollywood, Image is Still Everything

Responsibilities attached to this new position are numerous, but one of the key tasks is to increase awareness of ACE, MPA, and TPN content protection enforcement efforts. How that will be achieved is laid out in black and white, with the successful candidate’s tasks including the following:

 

Generate and implement media opportunities and strategies to cultivate and enhance meaningful relationships with targeted audiences, including the media, internal and external influencers and constituents

 

Cultivate and enhance collaborative working relationships with the press, and with internal and external ACE, TPN and MPA stakeholders and members authentically and effectively, to build reputation, earn trust and achieve measurable results

 

Collaborate with the MPA digital team on strategy and content for ACE, TPN and the MPA’s online presence and social media activity

 

The successful candidate will also be required to “coordinate print and broadcast interviews by drafting talking points [and] key messages” while leading the “curation, development and delivery of ACE, TPN and MPA messaging documents [and] talking points.”

Anti-Piracy Outreach

In an ideal world, the MPA is looking for someone with a Bachelor’s Degree in English, Communications, Journalism, Political Science, or Public Relations, with a minimum 10 years’ experience working in a press/media, public affairs and/or political capacity.

 

It would be cynical to suggest that the media might be viewed as a conduit for political messaging, or as third-party amplifiers of carefully prepared statements and press releases. But the unfortunate reality is that the sensitive nature of anti-piracy work does not easily accomodate probing questions from the inquisitive.

 

While investigations are underway, ACE is unfailingly professional, which means it gives away absolutely nothing. When investigations are over, sensitive settlement agreements prevent any of the parties – ACE, MPA, and pirates alike – from revealing anything that hasn’t been cleared by air-tight legal agreements.

 

Put bluntly, if journalists want to publish something unique, they’ll have to obtain their own information from their own sources. The alternative is to amplify pre-packaged takes on what tend to represent just one side of much bigger stories, stories that need to be told independently, whenever that’s possible.

News vs. Marketing and Advertising

None of this should be taken as criticism of the MPA and it’s certainly no criticism of ACE. As we’ve reported many times before, ACE is an extremely professional operation that even some pirates have expressed grudging respect for, even after being targeted themselves.

 

The key point is that ACE’s work is incredibly sensitive and if that unit is to be promoted to the world – by Hollywood itself – people will only see what Hollywood wants people to see. Successes will be accompanied by fanfare and tickertape, while less positive news will be pushed into dark corners. For big business this is entirely normal.

 

There are also constraints placed on sensitive information, especially when related to investigations that could turn into a lawsuit or criminal action. But on the flip side, and when the time is just right, less positive results will undoubtedly see the light of day as they’re rolled out in support of lobbying efforts to pass new legislation.

Real Fights Need Real Tools, But Beware of the Consequences

Tightened law undoubtedly improves Hollywood’s ability to fight piracy in the face of what can be extremely organized, determined, and in some cases, highly cynical piracy operations with no respect for Hollywood, or even their users. The problem is that tighter laws in the online space have a tendency to encroach on existing online freedoms. The only way to ensure that doesn’t happen is to tell all sides of the story.

 

Hollywood’s fight against piracy is very real, increasingly global, and in some areas unrecognizable when compared to the ‘sharing’ communities of two decades ago. Hollywood makes us laugh, and it can make us cry, and for that most of us are truly grateful. But when all is said and done, and if nothing else, there will always be a Hollywood ending for Hollywood.

 

So, as the story plays out and the dramas unfold, taking a peek and then reporting on events behind the curtain should be considered mandatory. The alternative is strapping on a supplied sandwich board and walking around town advertising a pre-printed message.

 

It might even be a good message but when there’s an opportunity to do more, we should do more.

 

One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news. Each of the three is a rather bizarre and demanding profession. And when you get all three under one roof, the dust never settles – Edward R. Murrow

 

Image credits: Pixabay/geralt/roisette

 

Pretty much every book ever written is available online for free and millions are shared through central hubs, commonly known as ‘shadow libraries’.

 

Z-Library is one of the largest shadow libraries on the Internet. Through a variety of domain names, the site offers over 11 million books and 84 million articles. This has attracted a steady userbase and many millions of monthly visitors.

 

Earlier this week the Authors Guild listed the site as a growing piracy problem. Many people promote the free service on social media, without any enforcement action getting in the way.

 

“So far there have not been any significant enforcement actions against Z-Library of which we are aware,” the Authors Guild wrote. That statement expired quickly.

‘Seized ZLibrary Domains’

Several Z-Library-associated domains started having issues yesterday when content seemingly disappeared from view. The problem was exacerbated when domain names became inaccessible; as if they were being wiped off the Internet.

 

A close look at domain records reveals that the nameservers of some of the key domain names, including z-lib.org, b-ok.org, and 3lib.net, were pointed at SEIZEDSERVERS.COM yesterday. These nameservers are controlled by the US Department of Justice and are often used to shut down sites as part of criminal proceedings.

 

Other Z-Library-affiliated domain names, such as b-ok.lat and booksc.org, don’t share these nameservers. They instead resolve to 66.212.148.117 (at AS13333 Consolidated Communications) where SEIZEDSERVERS.COM is hosted.

Seizure Banner

The latter domains now display a seizure banner that was purportedly uploaded by the authorities. The notice explains that the targeted domains were seized in response to a court order, which suggests that there’s a criminal crackdown underway.

 

“This domain has been seized by the United States Postal Inspection Service in accordance with a court order,” the notice reads.

 

The grounds for the seizures remain unclear and no obvious information to explain why the Postal Inspection Service has a leading role. TorrentFreak reached out to the Department of Justice and the Postal Inspection Service but we received no immediate responses.

 

Z-Library itself hasn’t confirmed the seizures either, referring to a hosting issue instead.

 

“The z-library services are currently unavailable due to a server block by one of our hosting providers. We are doing our best to get back to work as soon as possible. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience and thanks for your patience!” they informed us.

 

The shadow library’s .oion address is still working on the Tor network. That site currently displays a message that refers to as well.

 

—-

 

This is a developing story, more information may be added later.

 

Three years ago, several of the world’s largest music companies including Warner Bros. and Sony Music sued Internet provider Grande Communications.

 

The recording labels accused the Astound-owned ISP of not doing enough to stop pirating subscribers. Specifically, they alleged that the company failed to terminate repeat infringers.

Jury Finds Grande Guilty

The case eventually went to trial which, after more than two weeks, reached its conclusion a few hours ago. At the Texas federal court, the jury found Grande contributorily liable for willful infringement of 1,403 copyrighted works.

 

The guilty verdict comes with a hefty damages award. For willful copyright infringement, a jury can award between $750 and $150,000 per work and here it decided that $33,333 is appropriate. That brings the total damages amount to $46,766,200.

RIAA is Pleased

Music industry group RIAA, which offered a helping hand in the legal battle, is pleased with the outcome. It sees the verdict as yet another confirmation that Internet providers must tackle copyright infringements on their network; they can’t simply ignore third-party piracy notifications.

 

“This is the latest validation by US courts and juries that unchecked online infringement will not stand,” RIAA’s Chairman and CEO Mitch Glazier says.

 

“The jury’s strong action here sends an important message to Internet Service Providers. Artists, songwriters, rightsholders, fans and legitimate services all depend upon a healthy digital music ecosystem that effectively protects creative works online.”

Opposing Arguments

At trial, Grande argued that it shouldn’t be held liable for alleged copyright infringements committed by its subscribers. The company portrayed itself as a neutral service provider that has never encouraged any type of piracy.

 

The ISP critiqued the record labels’ piracy monitoring service Rightscorp which, according to Grande, cannot accurately or reliably identify copyright infringements. In addition, Rightscorp allegedly destroyed or failed to preserve key evidence, the ISP said.

 

The record labels countered that Grande willingly profited from subscribers who downloaded and shared their music. The music companies explained that they sent over a million copyright infringement notices but Grande failed to terminate even a single subscriber account in response.

Appeal?

The $47 million damages award is substantially lower than the labels’ $1 billion verdict against Cox, where both the number of works and the damages per sound recording were higher. That case is still being appealed.

 

In a similar verdict in favor of music group BMG, Cox was ordered to pay $25 million in damages. That ruling was overturned, after which the parties reached a confidential settlement.

 

Whether Grande will appeal this jury verdict remains to be seen. TorrentFreak reached out to the company’s current owner Astound Broadband but, at the time of publication, we have yet to receive a response.

 

The Motion Picture Association (MPA) represents several of the world’s largest movie industry companies.

 

Traditionally its members were restricted to top Hollywood studios such as Disney and Warner Bros, but three years ago streaming giant Netflix joined the exclusive club.

 

The newcomer hasn’t changed the MPA’s main goal of protecting its members’ content from piracy. The MPA is the driving force behind the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment which tackles copyright infringement globally on behalf of dozens of major rightsholders, Netflix included.

Foreign Trade Barriers

Aside from enforcement, the MPA is also heavily involved in lobbying efforts. This week it sent an overview of global copyright-related challenges to the US Trade Representative (USTR), as input for the yearly report on foreign trade barriers.

 

As usual, the comments detail piracy problems and challenges in countries around the globe. They include concerns over lacking anti-camcording legislation, weak anti-piracy enforcement, as well as general shortcomings in overseas copyright laws.

 

The general tendency of these comments is that ‘more’ should be done to address the piracy problem. However, when looking over this year’s report, we noticed an interesting observation, suggesting that less can sometimes be more.

France’s Release Windows

As reported a few months ago, France has a “media chronology” law that grants an exclusive release window to movie theaters. This also applies to streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+.

 

The theatrical release window was reduced from three years to 15-17 months earlier this year. While that’s a step in the right direction, streaming services would like the window to be reduced even further.

 

According to the MPA, these windows could be seen as a trade barrier that, as suggested, might make piracy an even bigger problem.

 

“The media chronology was last updated in January 2022. However, several international and local stakeholders have argued that the chronology lacks flexibility, that the mandated release windows are too long, and that such windows exacerbate piracy,” the MPA writes.

Sensitive Issue

The MPA points to “stakeholders” and doesn’t take a strong position itself. The windowing issue is highly sensitive as many movie theater owners believe that shorter windows will hurt box office revenues.

 

When movie companies began to experiment with simultaneous streaming and theatrical releases during the COVID pandemic, theater owners sounded the alarm bell. According to the movie theater industry group NATO, exclusive release periods are vital to the survival and success of the industry.

 

The MPA is more reserved and doesn’t believe that the two revenue streams are in competition. This could also explain why the group decided to highlight the issue in a trade barriers report.

Italy Too

Interestingly, the discussion doesn’t end with France. Italy also considered a 90-day mandatory release window for all theatrical films this year. This also has the MPA worried, even though piracy isn’t mentioned directly there.

 

Instead, the Hollywood group is worried about the marketing issues these windows could present.

 

“MPA is concerned about the impact of such an extension on a broad scale, as this mandatory window would have serious repercussions on producers’ ability to adequately market their works,” the movie group notes.

 

The marketing problem could also have piracy repercussions, of course. If a film’s digital release is widely promoted throughout the world, Italians may be more eager to pirate it if no legal options are available to them.

 

All-in-all, the MPA’s release window comments, no matter how small, are noteworthy. For decades consumers have called for shorter windows and it appears that several movie industry stakeholders are now in the same camp.

 

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The full overview of the MPA’s trade barrier comments to the US Trade Representative is available here (pdf).